


Those Who Cannot Remember The Past

by FlirtyFroggy



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: ANd Andy, Bonding, Gen, POV Nile Freeman, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, and Nile and Nicky in the kitchen, and ended up being Nile and Joe in a bookshop, having quiet conversations, this was supposed to be 'the team actually know fuck all about history lol', with a bit of sadness about Booker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26511637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlirtyFroggy/pseuds/FlirtyFroggy
Summary: “Ok, I have to ask.”“Please do.”“Why are you reading a book about the First Crusade?”“Because I want to know what happened. Why else do people read history books?”“But you were there.”Nicky shrugged. “Joe was at the Argentina vs England game in 1986, but he got stuck in the toilet and missed Maradona’s goal.”Nile stared at him. “What?”Nile gets to know Joe and Nicky a little better.
Relationships: Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Comments: 44
Kudos: 327





	Those Who Cannot Remember The Past

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fanfic for ages and I wasn't planning on doing so now. It's not like there's a shortage of fic to read. But these characters have got under my skin, so. Here we are.

When Joe had said he had one last stop to make, Nile had been hoping for a cafe or a bakery or somewhere she could get something, anything, to eat. Instead, Joe was disappearing into a bookstore, the kind with houseplants in the window and more books than shelves and a cat sleeping by the owner’s feet. She adjusted her grip on the bags full of groceries, lamenting once again that super healing didn’t also come with super strength, and followed Joe inside. It turned out the owner had a dog not a cat but otherwise she’d been right on the money. Both Joe and Nicky had an uncanny ability to sniff out these places wherever they went and she had, at this point, been in a version of this shop in about half a dozen cities. Normally she enjoyed poking around in them, especially with Joe, whose tastes were a little closer to her own. Normally. “We couldn’t have come here before we bought a sack full of carrots and potatoes?” she grumbled. Joe flashed her his most charming smile. Nile resolutely refused to be charmed. 

“Books are also heavy,” Joe pointed out, easing his way around a stack of romance novels with particularly lurid covers. “So it probably wouldn’t matter which order we bought things in. Don’t knock those over” he added, shielding the romance novels from her dangerously swinging grocery bag. His own bags appeared to be causing him no problems at all. “You carry around tactical gear and heavy weaponry all the time you should be able to handle some vegetables.”

“I’m hungry,” Nile said, definitely not whining.

“Ah,” Joe said, like that meant something. Then, “You have a bag full of food.”

“I’m not eating raw potatoes.”

“Then you can’t be that hungry.” He turned to the nearest shelves. The section was dedicated to crime, both fictional and real, but possibly also fantasy, and the kind of books that featured a wistful yet determined-looking white woman on the cover and involved the word ‘saga’. The store used the same kind of classification system as all small, independent bookstores run by people wearing slippers and cardigans. In other words, one that made sense to the proprietor and absolutely no-one else. “Ooh, I don’t think I’ve read this one,” Joe said, grabbing a Dorothy Sayers off the shelf. He read the back cover. “Wait, yes I have.” He put it back, deflating slightly.

“Have you ever been that hungry?” Nile asked, picking up the book he’d just put down. She’d never read any Dorothy Sayers, but anything that made Joe say ‘Ooh’ was probably worth checking out. She picked up the one beside it for good measure.

“Hmm? Oh. Hungry enough to eat raw potato?” Nile nodded. “I’d literally rather die,” he said, wandering to the next set of shelves and leaving her to wonder whether he had, at some point, actually chosen to die rather than eat something gross. She could generally tell with Joe when comments like that were a joke. It was a little harder with Nicky, whose sense of humour was drier, and with Andy, whose sense of humour was darker, but Joe was an easy read. Usually. She seemed to be struggling with him today, but she couldn’t tell if it was because of his mood or hers.

The selection of books on offer in these places was always a bit random but this place was one of the weirder ones. Aside from the romances by the door and the weird selection of crime, fantasy and tragic fortitude, half the front section of the shop contained children’s books, very few of which looked like they’d been published after about 1960. The entire back room, when they stepped through the opening, seemed to be history, predominantly, perhaps entirely, military history. You couldn’t spit in there without hitting a book whose cover sported some kind of helmet, sword or breastplate. There were a lot of tanks. Joe’s eyes widened and Nile groaned internally. She knew that look. They were going to be here for a while. “I’m going to go get a sandwich,” she decided. “You want anything?”

“Sure. Get me whatever. No onion.” He waved a distracted hand at her from where he was crouching in front of a shelf full of vikings and Norse mythology.

She turned to go, then remembered she was still holding the Dorothy Sayers books. She shoved them into Joe’s hands. “Get me those, would you?” He glanced down at them, then looked up at her with a grin.

“You like Sayers?”

“Never read any. Are they good?”

“They’re ridiculous.”

This seemed to be a good thing, so Nile left him to his books. She had no idea where the nearest sandwich might be located, but in these circumstances following her nose usually worked out well.

Twenty minutes later she was inhaling an above average meatball sub on her way back to the bookshop and feeling much better. She guzzled down half a bottle of Coke and dropped the other half in the grocery bag that didn’t seem nearly so cumbersome as it had pre-sandwich. Then she wiped her fingers clean on a paper napkin and went in search of Joe.

He wasn’t hard to find, standing six feet away from where she had left him, chatting to the bookstore owner as he totted up Joe’s purchases with pencil and paper. There was a lot of totting up to do. Joe had been busy.

“I hope you’re not expecting me to carry those,” she said, coming up behind him. He turned and smiled.

“Feeling better are we?”

“I felt fine before,” she said, completely unconvincingly. Joe laughed and shook his head. “I got you chicken,” she remembered, fishing his sandwich out of the bag. “No onion.”

“Rye bread?” he asked, taking the sandwich from her. “Light mayo? Butter not margarine? Romaine lettuce? Sprinkle of sesame seeds?”

“Funny. You asked for whatever and that’s what I got you.”

Joe laughed again and stashed his sandwich in his own bag so he could pack up his books. Several of the viking books had made their way into the haul, along with Nile’s Dorothy Sayers. There was a third Sayers, she noticed, along with a couple of others that looked like they might be in the same vein, and several battered-looking Terry Pratchetts. These were followed by Michelle Obama’s autobiography, something old bound in faded green cloth which could be about anything at all, a doorstop that seemed to be about gardening, and a book about the development of the flintlock musket. Joe picked up the last book, a copy of _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ that looked like it had had about twelve owners already, and made a quiet noise at the back of his throat. “Sorry, I— sorry. I won’t take this one after all.” He said it with his usual friendly smile but there was a look in his eyes that Nile had come to associate with Booker. Or rather, with Booker’s absence. Pained and a little angry still, but mostly uncertain. Like Joe didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

“No problem,” the owner shrugged, taking the book back and adjusting his total on the paper.

“I will take this one though,” Joe said as something on the table beside him caught his eye. He picked it up and handed it to the owner. It was a book about the First Crusade, which Nile noted with a glance at Joe that he appeared not to notice. She guessed that one was for her. She had been quietly researching the periods in which the others had first lived in the hope that the questions she wanted to bombard them with wouldn’t be too stupid. Also, if she was honest, she was dying of curiosity about the circumstances of Joe and Nicky meeting, but had been unsure how to broach it. The little she knew suggested it might be a sensitive subject, for all that Joe apparently found it amusing. Perhaps they had noticed her fumbling around and decided to put her out of her misery.

Joe paid for his books and they left with a cheery wave and a smile from the owner. Once outside, Joe heaved a sigh and frowned. “What’s up?” Nile asked.

“It was a joke,” he said, like it was an explanation for something.

“What was?”

“The book. _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_. It was— Booker. He met Victor Hugo once. Hated him. So it became a thing. Every time we saw one of his books we’d buy it for Booker. We must have given him hundreds over the years. I picked it up automatically when I saw it, didn’t even think.” Joe looked so lost that Nile sort of wanted to cry. But that wouldn’t be particularly helpful so she hugged him instead. His arms went around her instantly, heavy bags hitting her thighs. She didn’t mind. Part of her wanted to tell him that if Booker could just come back then none of this need be an issue. But that wasn’t really true. His presence wouldn’t magically fix everything. Those moments where Booker’s betrayal suddenly crashed over them again and sent them reeling would still happen, but they’d be even worse because Booker would be right there. All the pain but with added awkwardness. Some days she didn’t know which was harder to navigate: immortality or the massive fucking mess she had walked into. “Thank you,” Joe said, dropping his arms and stepping away. Nile shrugged.

“It’s just a hug.”

“No such thing as just a hug,” he said, nudging her arm with a smile.

“I guess not.”

Joe put his shoulders back and took a deep breath in a way that somehow declared the subject closed, then retrieved his sandwich, making a show of trying to unwrap it with one hand while hefting the shopping bags in the other. Nile rolled her eyes. “Just give me those,” she said, taking the bags from him.

“Thank you, Nile, how thoughtful.”

“I’m not your pack-horse,” she said as they made their way back towards the car. “As soon as you’ve finished that sandwich you’re taking these back.”

“Of course,” Joe said, and took the smallest possible bite out of his sandwich.

Nile laughed. “Don’t make me leave your books behind.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would.”

“Some of those books are for Nicky. You wouldn’t deprive of Nicky of his books. And some are yours.”

“I’ll keep Nicky’s. And mine. Yours are getting left on the sidewalk.”

“You’re a cruel, cruel woman Nile Freeman.”

~~

“You did what?” Joe’s outraged voice brought Nile to a halt outside the kitchen. She peered cautiously round the doorframe, then relaxed when she realised that wasn’t where the yelling was coming from. Nicky was stretched out on the kitchen sofa, reading, a glass of the wine from dinner in his hand. Joe and Andy’s argument filtered through the living room door. Andy’s voice was too low to make out what she was saying. Joe’s was not.

“I can’t believe this. We were supposed to be doing this together.”

“You weren’t here, Joe, how long was I supposed to wait?”

Nile shot a questioning look at Nicky as Andy’s voice rose. He kept reading, unconcerned, and moved his feet so she could sit down.

“How long did you wait?” Joe said. “Was I even out of the door? Five episodes. Five whole episodes.”

“They’re only short episodes. I lost track, ok?”

“Lost track? You finished the first season and started the second! How do you not notice you’ve done that?”

Nile blinked. “Are they arguing about a TV show?” Nicky nodded. “Shit, I thought it was something serious.”

“It’s very serious,” Nicky said with a smile. “They were watching it together, and now Andy is ahead. Thank you for the books, by the way.” He tilted the book in his hands then lowered it back to his knees. It was the book on the First Crusade that Joe had bought.

“Uh, that was mostly Joe. But you’re welcome.”

The bag of books was beside the sofa so she pulled out the Sayers Joe had got for her and studied the covers, trying to work out if there was an order she should read them in. “Start with that one,” Nicky said, nodding at the book in her left hand. 

“Thanks. You can stretch your feet out again if you like. You don’t look comfortable folded up like that.” It wasn’t a large sofa, and Nicky had long legs. He smiled in thanks and stretched his legs until they rested across hers. It was nice. The weight was comforting and his ankles made a decent prop for her book. 

“There’s more of this if you want it,” Nicky said, twisting the wine glass in his hand. Nile shook her head. She didn’t want to get up and she didn’t want Nicky to get up either. It was peaceful in the kitchen, the kind of quiet that comes after a busy day of doing lots of little things, after dinner’s been eaten and the dishes done, after the sun has gone down. The only noise coming from the living room was the muffled sound of the tv, so presumably some sort of resolution had been found. The only noise in the kitchen was the tree outside the window occasionally rustling against the glass, and the soft slide of paper as Nicky turned a page.

Nile read the first page of her own book five times before she gave up. “Ok, I have to ask.”

“Please do.”

“Why are you reading a book about the First Crusade?”

“Because I want to know what happened. Why else do people read history books?”

“But you were there.”

Nicky shrugged. “Joe was at the Argentina vs England game in 1986, but he got stuck in the toilet and missed Maradona’s goal.”

Nile stared at him. “What?”

“Stuck in the toilet cubicle, not the actual toilet,” he clarified. A smile was tugging at the corner of his mouth, but Nile couldn’t tell if he was messing with her or if he just found it funny that Joe got stuck in a toilet. Could be both. She decided to put a pin in that and drag the conversation back to its original topic.

“What does this have to do with the First Crusade?”

“Just because you were at an event does not mean you know everything about it. That is true of a football game and it is especially true of war.”

“Oh. I suppose so.” It seemed obvious, when he said it like that.

“I know what I saw, what I heard. What I did.” He was quiet for a moment, his eyes taking on the distant look that Nile had learned not to interrupt. He snapped back to the present and focused on Nile. “I was the third son of a minor nobleman in Genova. I knew nothing about the movement of the Turks in Asia Minor or power struggles in Rome and Constantinople. And if I had, I might not have cared. I knew my sword and I knew my God, and I was very wrong about one of those things.”

“So, it’s 2019 and you’re trying to understand the context of actions you took in 1099?” Nile said, pushing down the vertiginous feeling she got whenever she tried to wrap her head around their lifespans. It was like trying to imagine the size of the universe. Nicky nodded, pleased.

“Exactly. We make mistakes. Sometimes because of flawed information, sometimes because of our own flaws. Over many centuries we have made many mistakes. Big ones, small ones. We have to learn to forgive ourselves, to let them go. If we can. Move forward. But it is important for us, for me, to look back also. We all make our own choices but we are controlled by outside events too, often events that we have no understanding of or even know are happening. I have long understood the choices I made that took me to Jerusalem. But the outside forces that also took me there?” He gestured with his book. “I am still learning.”

“I thought you believed destiny took you there.”

Nicky huffed a small laugh. “It did. But I am not such an egotist as to believe destiny did all this” — he waved the book again — “just so I could meet Joe.” Nile laughed. Nicky sipped at his wine, giving her chance to ask more questions and she almost didn’t want to, but also she really, really did.

“Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“You said we have to learn to forgive ourselves for our mistakes. Did you?”

“Yes, eventually. Joe forgave me, and it would do him a disservice if I did not do the same. But I cannot forget. Should not forget. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. I don’t remember who said that.” Nile groaned and swatted him with her book. “What? I’m serious. I really don’t remember who said that.”

“Is it hard?”

“Forgiving yourself? Very. Harder even than forgiving others.” His expression shuttered for a moment, his eyes hard. Then he smiled at her again. “But both are necessary.”

“I meant, you know. The books. Reading about the past. The things you were part of.”

“Ah. That. It can be. Time and distance makes it easier. And I’ve been doing this for a very long time now. People have been writing about what we now call the crusades ever since they happened. Views on them have, um, changed over that time. The different perspectives are helpful, even if I don’t always agree with them.” 

“Do you think in 900 years time I’ll be reading books about Afghanistan and Iraq?” She tried not to think about how absurd it was she had to ask that.

“I hope so. Otherwise I think I will have failed you somewhere.” He tilted his head and looked at her thoughtfully. “You have more information about the world around you than I ever did. Too much, probably. Do you understand everything that’s going on? How long do you think it will be before you do?”

“I— I don’t know.” The vertiginous feeling was back again, and this time it wasn’t going away.

“Nile?” His hand on her shoulder was grounding and she took a deep breath. “Sorry. I know this is hard to think about, I shouldn’t have pushed.”

“No, It’s ok,” she said, recovering. The room stilled and the ground came back to her feet. “Is it ever still like this for you? When you think about the past and the future? How big they are?”

“Sometimes,” he nodded, and she looked at him sharply. She hadn’t really expected him to say that. They all seemed to take it so much in stride. “You can’t walk around thinking about it all the time, you’d go mad. And you do get used to it. But sometimes. When I think about how much the world has changed in my lifetime, how much it will change in the future. And it changes so fast now.” He shook his head, then gestured at her face. “That. That look on your face. Sometimes I feel like that.”

“And I thought I was hiding it so well.” She meant it as a joke, but it came out heavy. She ducked her head.

“Well, after nearly a millennium you get good at reading people. And, Nile. You know you don’t have to hide those things from us. You don’t have to hide anything from us.”

She looked up, faced his sincerity head on. His directness reminded her at times of her mother’s and that _hurt_ but it was also good. “Yeah. I know.”

“You’re not doing this alone. You’ll always have us.”

“Not always,” she said, thinking about Joe and Andy in the living room, watching TV like everything was normal. Like they were normal. “Sorry,” she added, seeing Nicky’s face.

“All things have their time. Even us. And right now, is time for more wine.” He patted her knee and got up. Nile watched him move around the kitchen, getting a second glass down from the cupboard and uncorking the bottle and looking like… a thirty year old man pouring a drink for his twenty-six year old friend. Sometimes, she’d found, the normality of their between-mission lives was jarring, and sometimes it was comforting, and sometimes it just _was_ and that was ok. She was ok.

She wasn’t alone.

**Author's Note:**

> The bookshop Joe and Nile visit is based on many an actual bookshop, but particularly one I know and love/hate (great if you have an hour to browse, not so much if you need to quickly grab something to read while your impatient family wait outside). The team probably aren't hiding out in a small market town in the north of England though.
> 
> Diego Maradona scored what is generally considered [the goal of the century](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wVho3I0NtU) during the Argentina vs England quarter-final of the 1986 World Cup while Yusuf al-Kaysani was desperately trying to break the lock on the door of the toilet cubicle he had got himself trapped in.
> 
> George Santayana said 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it'.
> 
> Joe and Andy are watching/arguing about The Good Place.


End file.
